The present invention relates to a method of assembling an integrated circuit (IC) by a TAB (Tape Automated Bonding) system, and an integrated circuit assembled thereby and, more particularly, to the configuration of leads of a TAB tape.
A TAB system is one of conventional implementations for assembling ICs and uses a TAB tape having leads which are uniform in width. The leads of the tape are connected to an IC. The end portions of the leads are cut off before the IC is actually packaged on a circuit board. To mount the IC on a circuit board, the leads are each positioned on a particular pad provided on the circuit board and then soldered to the pad.
However, the problem with the TAB system is that the leads connected to the IC and separated from the tape are not stable before the IC is packaged on the circuit board. Specifically, the leads easily deform when some object accidentally contacts the ends thereof. As a result, it is likely that the distance between nearby leads becomes irregular or that nearby leads contact each other. This makes it difficult to accurately position the leads on the associated pads of the circuit board. Moreover, the deformed leads have to be corrected in shape by an extra step.